Theme: Measurement

  • TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE We focus largely on the law but not on the other

    TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
    We focus largely on the law but not on the other innovations in the propertarian program:

    Yes, Propertarianism consists of a set of innovations
    1. Grammars… https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=540749233188638&id=100017606988153


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-28 21:53:02 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1211042399495114752

  • TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE We focus largely on the law but not on the other

    TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

    We focus largely on the law but not on the other innovations in the propertarian program:

    Yes, Propertarianism consists of a set of innovations

    1. Grammars (metaphysics)

    2. Testimonialism (epistemology)

    3. Acquisitionism and Propertarianism –

    Together making possible strictly constructed law (ethics)

    But we also have:

    4: Cooperationism, Compatibilism, Cognitive division of labor

    Which means that we specialize, largely along lines of gender cognition and age, in a division of perception, cognition, advocacy and negotiation. And then we ‘calculate’ by discovering opportunities to cooperate across the spectrum of population, time, and space. So we function as a neural network that discovers opportunities despite variations in our division of labor in perceiving and comprehending the world.

    And we also have:

    5. The Ternary Logic of Political Science.

    Let’s look at this a bit

    There are three states of logic, in order:

    1. False

    2. Truth candidate (actionable)

    3. Undecidable (In-actionable)

    There are three options to cooperation

    1. avoidance (ostracization)

    2. exchange (cooperation)

    3. predation-parasitism (conflict)

    There are three means of coercion

    1. Remuneration (deprivation of trade, or benefit from trade) Middle class – Libertarian Meritocratic

    2. Force (imposition of harm, defense from harm) Upper class – Conservative Eugenic

    3. Undermining (ostracizing/inhibiting opportunity, including/generating opportunity) Under Class – Progressive Dysgenic

    There are three axis of elites

    1. Scientific, Technical, Entrepreneurial, Financial, Treasury

    2. Military, juridical, Police, Sheriff, Militia

    3. Priests, Politicians, Public Intellectuals

    We can organize by three axis of elites (cooperate by)

    1. Production and Evolution (europe)

    2. Administration and Stagnation (strong:china, weak:india)

    3. Parasitism and Degeneration (semitia, gypsies)

    We can rule by three axis of decidability

    1. Science and Law (europe)

    2. Reason and Command (china india)

    3. Sophistry and Propaganda (semitia)

    We can govern by three axis

    1. Markets,Law,Courts, (europe) Middle Class

    2. Bureaucracy (china) Upper class

    3. Priesthood (semitia) Underclass

    The ranking assuming we eradicate the semitic dark ages:

    Europe, China, India, Iran-Assyria-Babylon, Egypt Mesoamerica, Semitia(jewish muslim), S-Pacific, E africa, W africa Africa, S Africa, Austronesia

    The only hard choice being iran vs india and that choice possible only because the Persians were not able to shake off islam and reassert Persian civlization despite efforts just as the germans can’t sake of Christianity despite their efforts and reassert germanic civilization.

    If something had not ‘gone wrong’ in India she would have produced the best culture with time. It may be climate and demographic curse. But I don’t quite understand what went wrong yet but I”ll figure it out. I think we undrestand what went wrong with persia and germania. And russia, germania, and china are our fault for not lettting russia retake orthodoxy, not letting germany retake europe, and not letting macarthur and patton finish the job of the second world war with russia and china.


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-28 16:52:00 UTC

  • TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE We focus largely on the law but not on the other

    TERNARY LOGIC OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

    We focus largely on the law but not on the other innovations in the propertarian program:

    Yes, Propertarianism consists of a set of innovations

    1. Grammars (metaphysics)

    2. Testimonialism (epistemology)

    3. Acquisitionism and Propertarianism –

    Together making possible strictly constructed law (ethics)

    But we also have:

    4: Cooperationism, Compatibilism, Cognitive division of labor

    Which means that we specialize, largely along lines of gender cognition and age, in a division of perception, cognition, advocacy and negotiation. And then we ‘calculate’ by discovering opportunities to cooperate across the spectrum of population, time, and space. So we function as a neural network that discovers opportunities despite variations in our division of labor in perceiving and comprehending the world.

    And we also have:

    5. The Ternary Logic of Political Science.

    Let’s look at this a bit

    There are three states of logic, in order:

    1. False

    2. Truth candidate (actionable)

    3. Undecidable (In-actionable)

    There are three options to cooperation

    1. avoidance (ostracization)

    2. exchange (cooperation)

    3. predation-parasitism (conflict)

    There are three means of coercion

    1. Remuneration (deprivation of trade, or benefit from trade) Middle class – Libertarian Meritocratic

    2. Force (imposition of harm, defense from harm) Upper class – Conservative Eugenic

    3. Undermining (ostracizing/inhibiting opportunity, including/generating opportunity) Under Class – Progressive Dysgenic

    There are three axis of elites

    1. Scientific, Technical, Entrepreneurial, Financial, Treasury

    2. Military, juridical, Police, Sheriff, Militia

    3. Priests, Politicians, Public Intellectuals

    We can organize by three axis of elites (cooperate by)

    1. Production and Evolution (europe)

    2. Administration and Stagnation (strong:china, weak:india)

    3. Parasitism and Degeneration (semitia, gypsies)

    We can rule by three axis of decidability

    1. Science and Law (europe)

    2. Reason and Command (china india)

    3. Sophistry and Propaganda (semitia)

    We can govern by three axis

    1. Markets,Law,Courts, (europe) Middle Class

    2. Bureaucracy (china) Upper class

    3. Priesthood (semitia) Underclass

    The ranking assuming we eradicate the semitic dark ages:

    Europe, China, India, Iran-Assyria-Babylon, Egypt Mesoamerica, Semitia(jewish muslim), S-Pacific, E africa, W africa Africa, S Africa, Austronesia

    The only hard choice being iran vs india and that choice possible only because the Persians were not able to shake off islam and reassert Persian civlization despite efforts just as the germans can’t sake of Christianity despite their efforts and reassert germanic civilization.

    If something had not ‘gone wrong’ in India she would have produced the best culture with time. It may be climate and demographic curse. But I don’t quite understand what went wrong yet but I”ll figure it out. I think we undrestand what went wrong with persia and germania. And russia, germania, and china are our fault for not lettting russia retake orthodoxy, not letting germany retake europe, and not letting macarthur and patton finish the job of the second world war with russia and china.


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-28 16:39:00 UTC

  • MORE ‘WHAT IS PROPERTARIANISM” CRITICISM “Propertarianism is the completion of (

    MORE ‘WHAT IS PROPERTARIANISM” CRITICISM

    “Propertarianism is the completion of (the complete) scientific method.”

    That’s it. Period. But it’s a profound thing. Very. It means not only the physical sciences but logics, psychological, social, political, legal, economic sciences.

    Now what do we do with that completed scientific method?

    The scientific method is value neutral, and commensurable regardless of discipline, and universal in application.

    We use that scientific method to produce a value neutral fully commensurable language across all disciplines.

    We use that logic and language to produce a universally commensurable value neutral system of law.

    We used that value neutral system of law to produce a constitution.

    That constitution’s principle innovation is to incrementally suppress the means by which western civlization in the ancient and modern world was undermined by crimes of plausible deniability (which I won’t explain right here), but that’s what you think of when you think of leftism.

    One can create an infinite number of constitutions of infinite variety using that law, as long as one constructs them truthfully and reciprocally (which is a problem for the left).

    The constitution we propose restores the american constitution to its original intent as military and treasury that allows for the concentration of military power sufficient for defense of the continent, devolves all other powers to the states, makes everyone liable for the truth and reciprocity of speech in public to the public about matters public (outlaws leftism), and reforms every single aspect of life so that we restore our civilization from the ((())) harms done to it this past century.

    That constitution is on line and in progress and is a lot to swallow, but then so are the Declaration, Articles of Confederation, Federalist Papers, Constitution, Bill of Rights, The Amendements, History of Supreme Court Rulings, Federal Code, and Individual State constitutions and codes.

    Propertarianism is the completion of the scientific method, it’s application to the totality of human knowledge, creating a universally commensurable value neutral language; its embodiment in the natural common law of tort; and as a consequence the eradication of [all deceit] from the informational commons.

    See?Updated Dec 28, 2019, 2:57 PM


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-28 14:57:00 UTC

  • Data? Because thats false. And the number is tiny

    Data? Because thats false. And the number is tiny.


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-28 13:30:12 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1210915857150468102

    Reply addressees: @SwissTechie @galt_the @JohnMarkSays @1776PatHenry

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1210863605199114240


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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1210863605199114240

  • The mind body problem is nonsense. The difference between experience and descrip

    The mind body problem is nonsense. The difference between experience and description is sophomoric. Any description will always contain less information than reality whether existential or experiential.


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-26 02:47:48 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1210029414362361856

  • you expand on psuedo-mathematics?”–Aaron Moiler It’s best term we have for it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomathematics—“Could you expand on psuedo-mathematics?”–Aaron Moiler

    It’s best term we have for it.

    …. 1. Keynesian economics doesn’t account for changes in capital.

    …. 2. Einsteinian physics doesn’t account for underlying causality.

    …. 3. Cantornian sets conflate velocity and quantity.

    In other words, they are not coherent with reality – they are useful parables.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PseudomathematicsUpdated Dec 24, 2019, 12:51 PM


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-24 12:51:00 UTC

  • The Demarcation Problem Is Complete

    KARL POPPER’S DEMARCATION PROBLEM IS SOLVED, AND THE CRITICAL RATIONALIST PROGRAM OF FALSIFICATION IS COMPLETE: IT WAS LAW ALL ALONG. AND HAYEK WAS RIGHT. [A]s far as I know, western success in science, technology, medicine, and economics was due to the transfer of our legal tradition (including traditional european law to Aristotle to Bacon to Hume to Hayek) – and the failure of our philosophers to understand that transfer. That legal tradition includes a Metaphysical Traditional Contract: 1 – A Universal Militia Regardless of Cost 2 – Excellence and Heroism Regardless of Cost 3 – Duty and Commons Regardless of Cost 4 – Truth and Oath Regardless of Cost 5 – Promise and Contract Regardless of Cost 6 – Sovereignty and Reciprocity Regardless of Cost 7 – The Natural Law and Jury Regardless of Cost 8 – Wherein every man a soldier, sheriff, judge, and his own legislator, of his own demonstrated interests. 9 – And as a result – the only possibility for social organization is Voluntary Markets in: .. – association .. .. – cooperation .. .. .. – production .. .. .. .. – reproduction .. .. .. .. .. – commons .. .. .. .. .. .. – polities .. .. .. .. .. .. .. – war. 10 – Together producing the fastest possible means of human adaptation to circumstances; 11 – Including the continuous evolutionary production of Human Agency (human capital); 12 – By the domestication of man by market eugenics, 13 – And as a result, the direction of surpluses to the production of commons, and the multiples of returns produced therefrom; 14 – Including the unique high trust society; 15 – And the informational, scientific, technological, medical, economic, social, political, and military benefits therefrom. 16 – Yielding a genetic distribution free of the burden of underclass consumption, and the costs of their organizaation, administration, and care. These are the organizing principles of western civilization, and what separates the west from the rest, and origin of that separation is in truth before face, cost to self image, cost to the competence hierarchy, and cost to the dominance hierarchy, where truth refers to martial testimonial truth (what the military calls ‘reporting’, warrantied by the speaker, given the consequences that result from error, bias, and deceit in military contexts. India is an extended family, china is a family bureaucracy, the west a military hierarchy, and semitia is feminine supernatural dependency: a civilization of and for women. CRITICAL RATIONALISM So, the demarcation in law between testifiability and fiction, is legal due diligence (falsification). DUE DILIGENCE Man can perform due diligence against every dimension perceivable by man: 1 – categorical consistency (identity), 2 – internal consistency (logical), 3 – operational consistency (existential possibility), 4 – external consistency (empirical), 5 – rational consistency (rational choice), 6 – reciprocal consistency (rational choice between parties in affected by any change in state), 7 – limites and completeness (full accounting within stated limits), 8 – sufficient to meet demand for infallibility of decidability by all parties affected directly or indirectly by the display word ord deed, 9 – and warrantied by possibility of the speaker’s restitution of all parties affected by display word or deed. In other words, yes, one of the demarcations between science and non-science is falsificationary, and requires not only the test of falsifiability, but due diligence against falsehood in all dimensions perceivable by man, and warranty to falsify the incentive to escape due diligence. EPISTEMOLOGY Another is that the individual alone can perform that due diligence, or that the process of due diligence includes only: … [ Problem -> Theory -> Test -> Repeat ] … Instead of: … [ Observation -> Question(problem) -> Free association -> hypothesis -> falsification by one’s reason -> falsification by the full set of dimensions falsifiable by man above -> Propositional Theory -> Falsification by Application in the Market for Solutions to Problems -> Settled (Surviving) Theory -> Presumption -> Metaphysical Presumption ] … Which is a chain of iterations on: … [ Problem(Question) -> Hypothesis -> Test(Falsify) -> Repeat ] .. Under increasing scope of ‘markets’ (competitions) from the mind(imagination) demonstrated actions (due diligence), to the market for applications (applied). … [ Mental-Imagination -> Physical-Action -> Market-Competition ] … And this epistemological sequence applies for all knowledge claims regardless of the discipline, paradigms, and logic within that discipline. CRITICAL PREFERENCE And this brings us to where else Popper – like all literary (platonic) philosophers failed: costs. Costs of due diligence, costs of internal consistency, costs of operational possibility, Costs of empirical (external) correspondence, costs to others if one errs, implies, or deceives, and costs of liability for one’s displays words and deeds if one errs, suggests, implies, or deceives. In other words, where philosophers are (like theologians) conventionally forgiven their use of suggestion and deceit, scientists, like testimony in court, are not. And this explains the causal relationship between the horrifying damage done by theology and philosophy while providing and questionable good, and the profound gains done by science and its unquestionable goods: raising mankind out of ignorance, superstition, tyranny, hard labor, poverty, starvation, disease, suffering, child mortality, early death, and the vicissitudes of a nature all but hostile to advanced life. THE AGE OF VERBALISM AND THE AGE OF OPERATIONS Philosophers generally work in sets (verbal associations), and ideals, while the law, engineering work in operations (sequences of actions) and the material. And while sets are largely verbal constructs free of cost, action, operations, engineering, science, law and economics include costs. This is why there is a high correlation between moralizing and philosophy, and a high correlation between science and law. Because moralizing does seeks general rules regardless of cost, and sciences and law seek general rules including costs. It also explains why the west developed geometry (engineering and technology) and the orient algebra (astrology and theology). And it explains the western restoration by Descartes restoration of mathematics from language to geometry. And the development of calculus because of our return to european geometry. And that in turn explains western religion’s development of law, philosophy, epicureanism, and unfortunately stoicism, of the middle classes, and middle east’s development of monotheistic (totalitarian) religion of the underclasses. Why does this matter? Popper never performed a study of scientific research, he just used reason to state that choices in scientific investigation was undecidable. But it’s demonstrably false. The problem in scientific exploration like any form of action (engineering), is that as distance from human scale increases. either smaller or larger, the costs of investigation increases, and as such we pursue the information we can afford to. And this turns out to be the optimum means of investigation. And this corresponds to the physical and human world’s behavior: nature must take the least cost action possible, and humans do as well – as long as we make a full accounting of causes (incentives). DEMARCATION IS SOLVED So the demarcation problem is solved. The word for science is due diligence under the law of reciprocity, inpursuit of giving warrantable testimony about the world regardless of our ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, propaganda, fictionalisms, and deceits. BUT ALSO, PHILOSOPHY IS SOLVED Philosophy now, like the logics, is complete for truth and limited only to preference within the limits provided by physical laws of Nature, and the Natural law of cooperation: Reciprocity within the Limits of Proportionality. Truth is, and always has been, a subject of testimony under the law of reciprocity, and that discipline we call science, is merely our means of due diligence in pursuit of falsifying our testimony so that we may warranty and accept liability for our truth claims. WHERE WERE WE FIND:Deflationary Grammars (logics) 1 – Mathematics for the measurement of constant relations. .. 2 – Operations for the measurement of existential possibility. .. .. 3 – Reciprocity for the measurement of ethics. .. .. .. 4 – Science (falsification) for the measurement of due diligence against error, bias, and deceit. And Descriptive Grammars (logics) .. .. .. .. 5 – Testimony for the truth claims under the promise of due diligence. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – Philosophy for choice within the testifiable. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – History for what we have done, and literature for what we might do. And Inflationary Grammars (logics) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Myths, Legends, Fairy Tales, Parables, and Rhymes for pedagogy of the young, and the most error-free preservation of the consistency of accumulated wisdom over time. And Grammars of Deceit (llogics) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 9 – Suggestions: Loading, Framing, Overloading, Obscurantism, Propaganda, Social Construction, Religion. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 – Fictionalisms: idealism-surrealism, magic-pseudoscience, occult-supernaturalism(theology) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 11 – Deceits (Fictions) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 12 – Denial All else is ignorance, error, bias, wishful-thinking, fictionalism, propaganda, and deceit. And baiting into hazard, using the fictionalisms of denialism, social-construction, idealism, pseudoscience, and the supernatural, is most advanced technology of deceiving other humans. And philosophers have a long history of making false claims that bait our peoples into hazard, because they have failed to perform due diligence against the consequences of the harms that are the direct or indirect consequences of the falsehoods that they have advocated. DEMARCATION IS SOLVED Not only have we demarcated science from non-science, but we have demarcated math, operations, reciprocity, science, testimony, philosophy, history, literature, and myth. Popper’s program is complete. We just don’t want to be accountable for paying the cost of due diligence, so we preserve philosophy like we preserve theology – to escape responsibility for our thoughts words and deeds. Given These Dimensions Possibility 1 – Distinguishability (indistinguishable, distinguishably, meaningful(categorical), identifiable(memorable). .. 2 – Possibility (unimaginable, imaginable, rational, empirical, operational, unavoidable ) .. .. 3 – Actionability (inactionable,contingently actionable, actionable) .. .. .. 4 – Population (Self, Others, All, Universal) And These Dimensions of Decidability Indistinguishable(perception) > .. Distinguishable(cognition) > .. .. Memorable(categorical-referrable) > .. .. .. Possible(material) > .. .. .. .. Actionable(physical) > .. .. .. .. .. Choosable(for use) > .. .. .. .. .. .. Preferable(Personal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Good(interpersonal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Decidable(juridical, political) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. True(most parsimonious descriptive name possible)(universal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Analytic > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Tautological. Where the Demand for Increasing Infallibility of Decidability Yields the Series: 1 – Intelligible: Decidable enough to imagine a conceptual relationship .. 2 – Reasonable: Decidable enough for me to feel confident that my decision will satisfy my needs, and is not a waste of time, energy, resources. .. .. 3 – Actionable: Decidable enough for me to take actions given time, effort, knowledge, resources. .. .. .. 4 – Ethical and Moral: Decidable enough for me to not impose risk or costs upon the interests of others, or cause others to retaliate against me, if they have knowledge of and transparency into my actions. .. .. .. .. 5 – Normative: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – Judicial: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different knowledge, comprehension and values. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – Scientific: Decidable regardless of all opinions or perspectives (True) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Logical: Decidable out of physical or logical necessity .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 9 – Tautological: Decidedly identical in properties (referents) if not references (terms). So to borrow the one of many terms from Economics, we can see in this series (list) a market demand for increasingly infallible decidability. And Where We Can Warranty the Consequences of The Promise of Infallibility of Decidability: 1 – True enough to imagine a conceptual relationship .. 2 – True enough for me to feel good about myself. .. .. 3 – True enough for me to take actions that produce positive results. .. .. .. 4 – True enough for me to not cause others to react negatively to me. .. .. .. .. 5 – True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different values. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – True regardless of all opinions or perspectives. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Tautologically true: in that the two things are equal. Where Decidability Consists In a) In the REVERSE: a question (statement) is DECIDABLE if an algorithm (set of operations) exists within the limits of the system (rules, axioms, theories) that can produce a decision (choice) absent discretion. In other words, if the sufficient information for the decision is present (ie: is decidable) within the system�(ie: grammar). b) In the OBVERSE: Instead, we should determine if there is a means of choosing without the need for additional information supplied from outside the system (ie: not discretionary). Or in simple terms, if DISCRETION is necessary the question is undecidable, and if discretion is unnecessary, a proposition is decidable. This separates reason (or calculation in the wider sense) from computation (algorithm). Where Gramma refers to the rules of continuous recursive disambiguation given the dimensions included in the paradigm(network of constant relations), and consequent limits on vocabulary and logic within those dimensions. And Where Truth Consists in The Series 1 – Tautological Truth: That testimony you give when promising the equality of two statements using different terms: A circular definition, a statement of equality or a statement of identity. 2 – Analytic Truth: The testimony you give promising the internal consistency of one or more statements used in the construction of a proof in an axiomatic(declarative) system. (a Logical Truth). 3 – Ideal Truth: That testimony (description) you would give, if your knowledge (information) was complete, your language was sufficient, stated without error, cleansed of bias, and absent deceit, within the scope of precision limited to the context of the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possessed of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. (Ideal Truth = Perfect Parsimony.) 4 – Truthfulness: that testimony (description) you give if your knowledge (information) is incomplete, your language is insufficient, you have performed due diligence in the elimination of error, imaginary content, wishful thinking, bias, fictionalism, and deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and which you warranty to be so; and the promise that another possessed of the knowledge, performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. 5 – Honesty: that testimony (description) you give with full knowledge that knowledge is incomplete, your language is insufficient, but you have not performed due diligence in the elimination of error and bias, but which you warranty is free of deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possess of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. And Where the Criteria for Truthful Speech Is Coherence Across the Dimensions Testifiable by Man, in The Series: 1 – Categorically Consistent (Non-conflationary,Differences) 2 – Internally Consistent (Logical) 3 – Externally Consistent (Empirical) 4 – Operationally Consistent (Consisting of Operational Terms that are Repeatable and Testable) 5 – Rationally Consistent (Consisting of Bounded Rational choice, in available time frame) 6 – Reciprocal (Consisting of Reciprocally Rational Choice) 7 – With Stated Limits and Fully Accounted (Defense against cherry picking and inflation) 8 – Warrantied … (i)as having performed due diligence in the above dimensions; … (ii)where due diligence is sufficient to satisfy the demand for infallibility; … (iii)and where one entertains no risk that one cannot perform restitution for. As a Defense Against the Series: 1 – Ignorance and Willful Ignorance; 2 – Error and failure of Due Diligence; 3 – Bias and Wishful Thinking; 4 – And the many Deceits of: … (a) Loading and Framing; … (b) Suggestion, Obscurantism, and Overloading and Propaganda; … (c) Fictionalisms of Sophisms, Pseudorationalisms, Pseudoscience, and Supernaturalism; … (d) and outright Fabrications. In Defense or Advocacy Of: 1 – Any transfer of demonstrated interest that is not: … (a) productive … (b) fully informed … (c) warrantied … (d) voluntary transfer(harm, imposition of costs) upon demonstrated interests internal to the display word or deed; … (e) and free of imposition upon the demonstrated interests of others by externality. And Including but Not Limited to The Series of Those Categories Of: 1 – Murder, 2 – Harm, Damage, Theft, 3 – Fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by indirection, 4 – Free riding, socialization of losses, privatization of commons, 5 – Baiting into Hazard (The cause of 20th C pseudoscience) 6 – Rent-seeking, monopoly seeking, conspiracy, statism/corporatism, 7 – conversion(religion/sophism/pseudoscience), 8 – displacement(immigration/overbreeding), 9 – conquest (war). Cheers Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute

  • The Demarcation Problem Is Complete

    KARL POPPER’S DEMARCATION PROBLEM IS SOLVED, AND THE CRITICAL RATIONALIST PROGRAM OF FALSIFICATION IS COMPLETE: IT WAS LAW ALL ALONG. AND HAYEK WAS RIGHT. [A]s far as I know, western success in science, technology, medicine, and economics was due to the transfer of our legal tradition (including traditional european law to Aristotle to Bacon to Hume to Hayek) – and the failure of our philosophers to understand that transfer. That legal tradition includes a Metaphysical Traditional Contract: 1 – A Universal Militia Regardless of Cost 2 – Excellence and Heroism Regardless of Cost 3 – Duty and Commons Regardless of Cost 4 – Truth and Oath Regardless of Cost 5 – Promise and Contract Regardless of Cost 6 – Sovereignty and Reciprocity Regardless of Cost 7 – The Natural Law and Jury Regardless of Cost 8 – Wherein every man a soldier, sheriff, judge, and his own legislator, of his own demonstrated interests. 9 – And as a result – the only possibility for social organization is Voluntary Markets in: .. – association .. .. – cooperation .. .. .. – production .. .. .. .. – reproduction .. .. .. .. .. – commons .. .. .. .. .. .. – polities .. .. .. .. .. .. .. – war. 10 – Together producing the fastest possible means of human adaptation to circumstances; 11 – Including the continuous evolutionary production of Human Agency (human capital); 12 – By the domestication of man by market eugenics, 13 – And as a result, the direction of surpluses to the production of commons, and the multiples of returns produced therefrom; 14 – Including the unique high trust society; 15 – And the informational, scientific, technological, medical, economic, social, political, and military benefits therefrom. 16 – Yielding a genetic distribution free of the burden of underclass consumption, and the costs of their organizaation, administration, and care. These are the organizing principles of western civilization, and what separates the west from the rest, and origin of that separation is in truth before face, cost to self image, cost to the competence hierarchy, and cost to the dominance hierarchy, where truth refers to martial testimonial truth (what the military calls ‘reporting’, warrantied by the speaker, given the consequences that result from error, bias, and deceit in military contexts. India is an extended family, china is a family bureaucracy, the west a military hierarchy, and semitia is feminine supernatural dependency: a civilization of and for women. CRITICAL RATIONALISM So, the demarcation in law between testifiability and fiction, is legal due diligence (falsification). DUE DILIGENCE Man can perform due diligence against every dimension perceivable by man: 1 – categorical consistency (identity), 2 – internal consistency (logical), 3 – operational consistency (existential possibility), 4 – external consistency (empirical), 5 – rational consistency (rational choice), 6 – reciprocal consistency (rational choice between parties in affected by any change in state), 7 – limites and completeness (full accounting within stated limits), 8 – sufficient to meet demand for infallibility of decidability by all parties affected directly or indirectly by the display word ord deed, 9 – and warrantied by possibility of the speaker’s restitution of all parties affected by display word or deed. In other words, yes, one of the demarcations between science and non-science is falsificationary, and requires not only the test of falsifiability, but due diligence against falsehood in all dimensions perceivable by man, and warranty to falsify the incentive to escape due diligence. EPISTEMOLOGY Another is that the individual alone can perform that due diligence, or that the process of due diligence includes only: … [ Problem -> Theory -> Test -> Repeat ] … Instead of: … [ Observation -> Question(problem) -> Free association -> hypothesis -> falsification by one’s reason -> falsification by the full set of dimensions falsifiable by man above -> Propositional Theory -> Falsification by Application in the Market for Solutions to Problems -> Settled (Surviving) Theory -> Presumption -> Metaphysical Presumption ] … Which is a chain of iterations on: … [ Problem(Question) -> Hypothesis -> Test(Falsify) -> Repeat ] .. Under increasing scope of ‘markets’ (competitions) from the mind(imagination) demonstrated actions (due diligence), to the market for applications (applied). … [ Mental-Imagination -> Physical-Action -> Market-Competition ] … And this epistemological sequence applies for all knowledge claims regardless of the discipline, paradigms, and logic within that discipline. CRITICAL PREFERENCE And this brings us to where else Popper – like all literary (platonic) philosophers failed: costs. Costs of due diligence, costs of internal consistency, costs of operational possibility, Costs of empirical (external) correspondence, costs to others if one errs, implies, or deceives, and costs of liability for one’s displays words and deeds if one errs, suggests, implies, or deceives. In other words, where philosophers are (like theologians) conventionally forgiven their use of suggestion and deceit, scientists, like testimony in court, are not. And this explains the causal relationship between the horrifying damage done by theology and philosophy while providing and questionable good, and the profound gains done by science and its unquestionable goods: raising mankind out of ignorance, superstition, tyranny, hard labor, poverty, starvation, disease, suffering, child mortality, early death, and the vicissitudes of a nature all but hostile to advanced life. THE AGE OF VERBALISM AND THE AGE OF OPERATIONS Philosophers generally work in sets (verbal associations), and ideals, while the law, engineering work in operations (sequences of actions) and the material. And while sets are largely verbal constructs free of cost, action, operations, engineering, science, law and economics include costs. This is why there is a high correlation between moralizing and philosophy, and a high correlation between science and law. Because moralizing does seeks general rules regardless of cost, and sciences and law seek general rules including costs. It also explains why the west developed geometry (engineering and technology) and the orient algebra (astrology and theology). And it explains the western restoration by Descartes restoration of mathematics from language to geometry. And the development of calculus because of our return to european geometry. And that in turn explains western religion’s development of law, philosophy, epicureanism, and unfortunately stoicism, of the middle classes, and middle east’s development of monotheistic (totalitarian) religion of the underclasses. Why does this matter? Popper never performed a study of scientific research, he just used reason to state that choices in scientific investigation was undecidable. But it’s demonstrably false. The problem in scientific exploration like any form of action (engineering), is that as distance from human scale increases. either smaller or larger, the costs of investigation increases, and as such we pursue the information we can afford to. And this turns out to be the optimum means of investigation. And this corresponds to the physical and human world’s behavior: nature must take the least cost action possible, and humans do as well – as long as we make a full accounting of causes (incentives). DEMARCATION IS SOLVED So the demarcation problem is solved. The word for science is due diligence under the law of reciprocity, inpursuit of giving warrantable testimony about the world regardless of our ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, propaganda, fictionalisms, and deceits. BUT ALSO, PHILOSOPHY IS SOLVED Philosophy now, like the logics, is complete for truth and limited only to preference within the limits provided by physical laws of Nature, and the Natural law of cooperation: Reciprocity within the Limits of Proportionality. Truth is, and always has been, a subject of testimony under the law of reciprocity, and that discipline we call science, is merely our means of due diligence in pursuit of falsifying our testimony so that we may warranty and accept liability for our truth claims. WHERE WERE WE FIND:Deflationary Grammars (logics) 1 – Mathematics for the measurement of constant relations. .. 2 – Operations for the measurement of existential possibility. .. .. 3 – Reciprocity for the measurement of ethics. .. .. .. 4 – Science (falsification) for the measurement of due diligence against error, bias, and deceit. And Descriptive Grammars (logics) .. .. .. .. 5 – Testimony for the truth claims under the promise of due diligence. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – Philosophy for choice within the testifiable. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – History for what we have done, and literature for what we might do. And Inflationary Grammars (logics) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Myths, Legends, Fairy Tales, Parables, and Rhymes for pedagogy of the young, and the most error-free preservation of the consistency of accumulated wisdom over time. And Grammars of Deceit (llogics) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 9 – Suggestions: Loading, Framing, Overloading, Obscurantism, Propaganda, Social Construction, Religion. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 – Fictionalisms: idealism-surrealism, magic-pseudoscience, occult-supernaturalism(theology) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 11 – Deceits (Fictions) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 12 – Denial All else is ignorance, error, bias, wishful-thinking, fictionalism, propaganda, and deceit. And baiting into hazard, using the fictionalisms of denialism, social-construction, idealism, pseudoscience, and the supernatural, is most advanced technology of deceiving other humans. And philosophers have a long history of making false claims that bait our peoples into hazard, because they have failed to perform due diligence against the consequences of the harms that are the direct or indirect consequences of the falsehoods that they have advocated. DEMARCATION IS SOLVED Not only have we demarcated science from non-science, but we have demarcated math, operations, reciprocity, science, testimony, philosophy, history, literature, and myth. Popper’s program is complete. We just don’t want to be accountable for paying the cost of due diligence, so we preserve philosophy like we preserve theology – to escape responsibility for our thoughts words and deeds. Given These Dimensions Possibility 1 – Distinguishability (indistinguishable, distinguishably, meaningful(categorical), identifiable(memorable). .. 2 – Possibility (unimaginable, imaginable, rational, empirical, operational, unavoidable ) .. .. 3 – Actionability (inactionable,contingently actionable, actionable) .. .. .. 4 – Population (Self, Others, All, Universal) And These Dimensions of Decidability Indistinguishable(perception) > .. Distinguishable(cognition) > .. .. Memorable(categorical-referrable) > .. .. .. Possible(material) > .. .. .. .. Actionable(physical) > .. .. .. .. .. Choosable(for use) > .. .. .. .. .. .. Preferable(Personal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Good(interpersonal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Decidable(juridical, political) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. True(most parsimonious descriptive name possible)(universal) > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Analytic > .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Tautological. Where the Demand for Increasing Infallibility of Decidability Yields the Series: 1 – Intelligible: Decidable enough to imagine a conceptual relationship .. 2 – Reasonable: Decidable enough for me to feel confident that my decision will satisfy my needs, and is not a waste of time, energy, resources. .. .. 3 – Actionable: Decidable enough for me to take actions given time, effort, knowledge, resources. .. .. .. 4 – Ethical and Moral: Decidable enough for me to not impose risk or costs upon the interests of others, or cause others to retaliate against me, if they have knowledge of and transparency into my actions. .. .. .. .. 5 – Normative: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – Judicial: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different knowledge, comprehension and values. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – Scientific: Decidable regardless of all opinions or perspectives (True) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Logical: Decidable out of physical or logical necessity .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 9 – Tautological: Decidedly identical in properties (referents) if not references (terms). So to borrow the one of many terms from Economics, we can see in this series (list) a market demand for increasingly infallible decidability. And Where We Can Warranty the Consequences of The Promise of Infallibility of Decidability: 1 – True enough to imagine a conceptual relationship .. 2 – True enough for me to feel good about myself. .. .. 3 – True enough for me to take actions that produce positive results. .. .. .. 4 – True enough for me to not cause others to react negatively to me. .. .. .. .. 5 – True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values. .. .. .. .. .. 6 – True enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different values. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 – True regardless of all opinions or perspectives. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 8 – Tautologically true: in that the two things are equal. Where Decidability Consists In a) In the REVERSE: a question (statement) is DECIDABLE if an algorithm (set of operations) exists within the limits of the system (rules, axioms, theories) that can produce a decision (choice) absent discretion. In other words, if the sufficient information for the decision is present (ie: is decidable) within the system�(ie: grammar). b) In the OBVERSE: Instead, we should determine if there is a means of choosing without the need for additional information supplied from outside the system (ie: not discretionary). Or in simple terms, if DISCRETION is necessary the question is undecidable, and if discretion is unnecessary, a proposition is decidable. This separates reason (or calculation in the wider sense) from computation (algorithm). Where Gramma refers to the rules of continuous recursive disambiguation given the dimensions included in the paradigm(network of constant relations), and consequent limits on vocabulary and logic within those dimensions. And Where Truth Consists in The Series 1 – Tautological Truth: That testimony you give when promising the equality of two statements using different terms: A circular definition, a statement of equality or a statement of identity. 2 – Analytic Truth: The testimony you give promising the internal consistency of one or more statements used in the construction of a proof in an axiomatic(declarative) system. (a Logical Truth). 3 – Ideal Truth: That testimony (description) you would give, if your knowledge (information) was complete, your language was sufficient, stated without error, cleansed of bias, and absent deceit, within the scope of precision limited to the context of the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possessed of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. (Ideal Truth = Perfect Parsimony.) 4 – Truthfulness: that testimony (description) you give if your knowledge (information) is incomplete, your language is insufficient, you have performed due diligence in the elimination of error, imaginary content, wishful thinking, bias, fictionalism, and deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and which you warranty to be so; and the promise that another possessed of the knowledge, performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. 5 – Honesty: that testimony (description) you give with full knowledge that knowledge is incomplete, your language is insufficient, but you have not performed due diligence in the elimination of error and bias, but which you warranty is free of deceit; within the scope of precision limited to the question you wish to answer; and the promise that another possess of the same knowledge (information), performing the same due diligence, having the same experiences, would provide the same testimony. And Where the Criteria for Truthful Speech Is Coherence Across the Dimensions Testifiable by Man, in The Series: 1 – Categorically Consistent (Non-conflationary,Differences) 2 – Internally Consistent (Logical) 3 – Externally Consistent (Empirical) 4 – Operationally Consistent (Consisting of Operational Terms that are Repeatable and Testable) 5 – Rationally Consistent (Consisting of Bounded Rational choice, in available time frame) 6 – Reciprocal (Consisting of Reciprocally Rational Choice) 7 – With Stated Limits and Fully Accounted (Defense against cherry picking and inflation) 8 – Warrantied … (i)as having performed due diligence in the above dimensions; … (ii)where due diligence is sufficient to satisfy the demand for infallibility; … (iii)and where one entertains no risk that one cannot perform restitution for. As a Defense Against the Series: 1 – Ignorance and Willful Ignorance; 2 – Error and failure of Due Diligence; 3 – Bias and Wishful Thinking; 4 – And the many Deceits of: … (a) Loading and Framing; … (b) Suggestion, Obscurantism, and Overloading and Propaganda; … (c) Fictionalisms of Sophisms, Pseudorationalisms, Pseudoscience, and Supernaturalism; … (d) and outright Fabrications. In Defense or Advocacy Of: 1 – Any transfer of demonstrated interest that is not: … (a) productive … (b) fully informed … (c) warrantied … (d) voluntary transfer(harm, imposition of costs) upon demonstrated interests internal to the display word or deed; … (e) and free of imposition upon the demonstrated interests of others by externality. And Including but Not Limited to The Series of Those Categories Of: 1 – Murder, 2 – Harm, Damage, Theft, 3 – Fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by indirection, 4 – Free riding, socialization of losses, privatization of commons, 5 – Baiting into Hazard (The cause of 20th C pseudoscience) 6 – Rent-seeking, monopoly seeking, conspiracy, statism/corporatism, 7 – conversion(religion/sophism/pseudoscience), 8 – displacement(immigration/overbreeding), 9 – conquest (war). Cheers Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute

  • COST OF PRODUCING TV SHOWS: (collected from various articles) The minimum cost o

    https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056710448/?sort=list_order%2Casc&st_dt&mode=detail&page=1THE COST OF PRODUCING TV SHOWS:

    (collected from various articles)

    The minimum cost of producing a TV show would be half a million. The high end would be around several million dollars. The following is a very basic guideline. There are actually numerous items that can increase expenses.

    Rules of Thumb

    1 – Documentary 50k per episode (/e)

    2 – Cheap Cable Presentation 75K/e

    3 – Low end reality 100k/e

    4 – Series 500k-3M/e

    5 – High concept series 3-5M/e

    7 – Top Series 5-10M/e

    Average Costs Per Episode

    If you take the cost of all the networks and average them, the cost would be around $1 million to $1.5 million for every episode. On free TV, there are 22 to 26 episodes per season. On cable there are usually 13 per season. This doesn’t always mean that cable shows are less expensive. It depends on the production quality and if the show becomes a hit.

    The cost of producing a TV show’s pilot episode is about $500,000. This is for a typical drama series. For science fiction / fantasy, the expenses will be a little higher due to the makeup, clothing and special effects.

    However the cost will go up if the show becomes popular. ER for example, cost over $12 million per episode. Other shows that become popular like the Sopranos and the X Files, also cost millions per airing.

    Actor Fees

    This also varies as much as the episode cost. Assume that the actor is unknown and will star in a new drama series. For the pilot episode he / she may fetch $50,000 at least. This goes to explain why the cost of producing a TV show is high.

    If the program becomes a hit, the actor will want to renegotiate for a higher fee. Stars of high rating TV shows can fetch anywhere from $800,000 to a million dollars per episode.

    Not all actors receive this kind of money. For those in the background scenes, it’s about $130 per day. Those with one dialogue get around $800 for every day of work. Those who get a three day contract are paid $2,000. For those who perform every week it is $3,000 to $5,000. A stunt coordinator makes approximately $3,000 weekly.

    Other Expenses

    But the costs of producing a TV show do not end with actor fees of course. There are the writers, director and other personnel. Other expenditures include the food, transportation, building a set and lodging. A lot of shows also have flight insurance. Shooting on location, special effects and marketing have to be considered too.

    Not to be discounted is marketing. A show has to be promoted to get noticed. The nature of the program also affects the cost. Reality programs are said to be less expensive. Independent outfits have substantially lower costs too.

    Generating Revenues

    While the expenses are high, producers are able to recoup the costs through advertising and commercials. In cable programs, the producers make money from subscription fees and product placement.

    The cost of placing a commercial depends on its length and the show. Typically, a 30 second ad in a high rating show will cost about $250,000 to $300,000.

    The cost of producing a TV show is high. Given the competition in the entertainment industry, it might go up even more.

    THE LIFE OF A TV SHOW

    A TV show begins its life in one of four larval forms: a pitch, a script, a piece of source material, or a talent deal.

    A pitch involves writers and agents presenting concepts to studios, production companies, or networks. Five hundred or more pitches may wend their way through the system in any given year. Only a few are chosen for script development. The strength of a pitch has as much to do with the team behind it as it does the concept. As the old saying goes: ideas are worthless; execution counts. An inexperienced or obscure writer is unlikely to get a pitch meeting and unlikelier still to close a deal. A writer or producer with a strong track record, on the other hand, can sometimes sell a pitch with little more than George Costanza’s logline.

    Alternatively, a show could develop from a speculative or “spec” script pitched “around town” by a writer’s agent. Spec sales occur throughout the year, though a lot more specs get shelved than sold. They are also more common in the movie business than in TV. Evaluating the merits of a season of episodes involves thinking about more than a single script.

    A hot spec – an original project from a writer with a hit-filled track record or the rare buzzworthy project from a newcomer – can easily fetch six figures. Its price depends to some degree on the quality of the script, but more so on the degree of interest the project generates around town. High spec prices usually result from bidding wars between the networks.

    Other shows originate with the purchase or optioning of a piece of intellectual property. This could be a book, a newspaper article, a blog post, a video game, or even the rights to someone’s life story. Sourcing material is often the cheapest way to develop a concept. It can also be the riskiest, especially if the IP holder is unqualified to transform the concept into a full-fledged show. This is why networks often hand off sourced concepts to established writers to flesh out.

    The hottest writers in Hollywood even have shows pitched to them. In what’s known as a “blind deal,” a studio pays a writer a handsome figure – often in the millions of dollars per year – to flesh out scripts based on any ideas the studio and the writer dream up together over the life of the contract. The writer is “blind” in the sense that she is committing to developing scripts for a buyer before the ideas are fully baked.

    Breaking Bad started as a concept that X-Files veteran Vince Gilligan developed as a struggling and intermittently employed writer. Gilligan attracted the interest of Sony, who joined him in pitching the idea to networks around Hollywood. Gilligan admits that the pitch “was turned down all over town” before AMC purchased it. At the time, AMC was an unlikely buyer as smaller cable networks like AMC had only recently entered the scripted originals game. Since then, AMC has had a string of hits with Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead.

    With the entrance of outsiders like AMC, Netflix, Amazon, and Microsoft, there are more buyers in the marketplace than ever before. Depending on the stage of the idea, a would-be show could be bought or optioned by a production company, a studio, a distribution company, an individual producer, or a network.

    If the lines between these entities seem blurry and confusing, don’t worry; an in-depth exploration of the tangled web of media companies involved won’t help. The vertical and horizontal integration in the TV industry can be staggering.

    To take one example: 20th Century Fox, a holding company, owns Fox Television Studios (a production company), 20th Century Fox Television (a production group and studio), 20th Television (a syndication and distribution company), and Fox Broadcasting Company (the network, also known as FBC or simply as Fox). 20th Century Fox is in turn a division of Fox Entertainment Group, itself a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, which also happens to own the Fox movie studio. Until June 2013, all of these entities were owned by another parent company, News Corporation.

    Even insiders have trouble prying apart the intricacies of the system. This author worked at 20th Century Fox Television in the mid-2000s and couldn’t tell you who signed his paychecks.

    A 98% Failure Rate

    In some ways, TV networks are like venture capital firms. They place a series of bets, many of them quite expensive, on a portfolio of pilots: proof-of-concept episodes for prospective series. Only a small number of pilots will become shows, yet a typical half-hour comedy pilot costs $2 million to shoot, and an hour-long drama costs about $5.5 million. And that’s just for shooting the pilots themselves; those costs don’t include the millions of dollars spent acquiring and developing scripts, pitches, and talent deals.

    The 2012-13 “development season,” which ran from January to April, saw the production of a record 186 pilots for broadcast and cable television. The Hollywood Reporter, a trade paper, estimates that the networks spent $712 million shooting those pilots.

    That level of investment looks even higher when we consider the odds stacked against any given project. Fox, for instance, shot 8 dramas and 8 comedies for the upcoming Fall 2013 TV season. Of these 16 pilots – each of which was subsequently screened for executives and focus groups – only 9 were selected for the fall lineup. Competitor ABC ordered a heftier slate of 12 dramas and 12 comedies, of which 8 shows made the cut.

    For those keeping score, that’s a pilot-to-series rate of 56% for Fox and 33% for ABC. Using industry production-cost averages, we estimate that Fox spent $60 million to bring 9 shows to the air, and ABC spent $90 million to bring 8 shows to the air.

    Within the industry, that’s a great year. Variety estimates that one pilot is produced for every 5 scripts purchased. And in a typical year, a network will order about 20 pilots and bring 6 to the air. That means a script has a 20% chance of being produced as a pilot and a 6% chance of being aired on television. A writer who sells her script has a depressingly small chance of ever seeing it on the air.

    But wait – it gets worse. Of all the pilots aired on a new TV lineup, only 35% will air longer than a single season without cancellation. So the odds of a script achieving success are actually closer to 2.1%. To put it another way, any given script a network buys stands a 98% chance of commercial failure.

    This process may strike the astute reader as absurd. Given the millions of dollars thrown around every development season, and assuming that 98% of scripts in development fail, how on earth do networks stay in business? Why can’t they find a more scalable, more efficient, less expensive way to test concepts?

    The answer has a lot to do with how networks make money, and the very structured way in which TV advertising is sold. And Hollywood’s inability to predict the next hit doesn’t help.

    The Biggest Show of the Year

    The bulk of TV advertising sales takes place every May in New York at a series of presentations called the “network upfronts.” As the name implies, networks sell their new schedules months in advance. Up front. This is sort of like having to sell 5-year financial projections to an investor, and then being held strictly accountable for hitting each number. Advertisers don’t like to gamble on whether a show will exceed expectations. Uncertainty is the enemy. But almost nothing is certain about the fate of a show this far out.

    Big advertisers, such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, spend hundreds of millions of dollars each May. While they can and do make buys on individual programs (particularly on big hits like American Idol or The Big Bang Theory), they can negotiate better terms by agreeing to set levels of spending on a given network across a bundle of its programs.

    Many of those shows, especially the new ones, are still in various stages of production. Nevertheless, they must be presented as if in finished form. This is especially tricky for pilots, which are essentially proofs of concept. Advertisers will scrutinize them at the upfronts, often on the basis of short clips and word of mouth. A poorly received pilot is unlikely to attract advertising dollars. In this sense, the upfronts serve as the final gating mechanism before pilots can secure a spot on the air. Small changes can be made to the schedule – a shuffling of the deck chairs, so to speak – but it’s too late to shoot new pilots to fill any gaps that emerge during the upfronts.

    This system forces networks to place a polished facade over the chaos of the creative process. It strongly discourages the network from showing rougher, more minimal concepts to advertisers. Advertisers can’t tell the quality of the product from clips of the pilot. Instead they judge the confidence the network projects in its slate. A successful upfront presentation is more Steve Jobs than Steve Wozniak.

    Furthermore, networks have their own brands to worry about. The risk associated with a string of failures can be quite high and hard to recover from. NBC, which has languished near the bottom of the ratings pool for a few years in a row, now suffers from the lowest average advertising rates of all the major networks.

    Due to the fixed upfront schedule, iteration (improving or tweaking the show multiple times in response to viewer feedback) is also challenging. A show either looks good in May or it gets the axe. There’s very little time to make changes before the start of the Fall season. If everything gets the axe, there’s no time to develop something new. Shows that do survive the upfronts need to be staffed right away and their writing staffs to get cranking. As many as four scripts could be finished by the time the pilot debuts on TV, so there’s no room to respond to the show’s first reception by a live national audience.

    This is perhaps the biggest reason why networks keep so many projects in development each year: to hedge their bets. Networks operate in an environment that demands up-front commitments against uncertain outcomes; their best way to mitigate the risk is to have many, many pilots as fallback options.

    None of this would seem necessary if the networks had a halfway decent way of predicting success in the first place. They do conduct market research (usually in the form of focus groups) while in pilot production. But judging the future success of a show is extremely difficult at all stages of development.

    BUDGET FOR OVER 100 POPULAR TV SHOWS

    (Not price adjusted for inflation)

    https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056710448/?sort=list_order%2Casc&st_dt&mode=detail&page=1Updated Dec 23, 2019, 6:01 PM


    Source date (UTC): 2019-12-23 18:01:00 UTC